Two Young Poets Win Ruth Lilly Fellowships
$15,000 Awards Are Among the Largest to Aspiring Writers in the U.S.
CHICAGO—The Poetry Foundation has announced that two student poets—Colin Cheney and David Krump—have won the 2006 Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowships. Among the largest awards offered to aspiring writers in the United States, each Lilly Fellowship carries an award of $15,000 to help the recipients continue their study and writing of poetry.
Colin Cheney was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1978. He attended Brown University, earning his BA with honors in Environmental Studies in 2001. He is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at New York University, where he teaches in the Expository Writing Program. His work has appeared in many publications including Fourteen Hills: The SFSU Review and New Delta Review. Cheney lives in Brooklyn, New York.
David Krump was born in Hinsdale, Illinois, in 1979. He earned his BA from Viterbo University in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, in 2004. He is currently pursuing a Master of Studies degree in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford. His work has appeared in Verse and Colorado Review. He lives in La Crosse, Wisconsin, where he is the literary coordinator at The Pump House Regional Arts Center.
In announcing the fellowship recipients, Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry, said: “The winners this year emerged from a pool of eleven very gifted finalists. I feel sure we’ll be hearing much more from both of these poets in the years to come.”
The Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowships have been awarded annually since 1989 through a national competition. All undergraduate and graduate writing programs are invited to nominate a candidate by the April 15th deadline. This year over 145 applications were considered. The winners can use the $15,000 grant to further their studies however they wish. To be eligible, a student must be must a U.S. citizen 30 years old or younger, and must not have received an advanced degree before the end of the year in which the Fellowship is given.
The other judges for this year’s competition were the poets Dana Levin and Joel Brouwer.
The Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship program is organized and administered by the Poetry Foundation in Chicago, publisher of Poetry magazine.
About the Judges
Dana Levin is the author of In the Surgical Theatre (APR/Copper Canyon Press, 1999) and Wedding Day (Copper Canyon Press, 2005). A recipient of numerous honors, including recent fellowships and awards from the Library of Congress, Rona Jaffe, and Whiting Foundations, Levin teaches at the College of Santa Fe in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Joel Brouwer is the author of two books of poems, Exactly What Happened and Centuries. He has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, and the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation. He lives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and teaches at the University of Alabama.
Christian Wiman is the editor of Poetry magazine.
About Ruth Lilly
Ruth Lilly is known for her personal generosity to medical, educational, and cultural institutions, particularly in her native Indiana. In 1986 she established the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, one of the largest awards to poets in the United States, and in 1989 she created the Ruth Lilly Fellowship, awarded each year to two poets under the age of 30 for the study and practice of poetry. In 2002 her lifetime engagement with poetry culminated in a magnificent bequest that will enable the Poetry Foundation to promote, in perpetuity, a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture.
About the Poetry Foundation
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine and one of the largest literary organizations in the world, exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience. The Poetry Foundation seeks to be a leader in shaping a receptive climate for poetry by developing new audiences, creating new avenues for delivery, and encouraging new kinds of poetry through innovative literary prizes and programs. For more information, please visit www.PoetryFoundation.org.
About Poetry Magazine
Founded in Chicago by Harriet Monroe in 1912, Poetry is the oldest monthly devoted to verse in the English-speaking world. Harriet Monroe’s “Open Door” policy, set forth in Volume I of the magazine, remains the most succinct statement of Poetry’s mission: to print the best poetry written today, in whatever style, genre, or approach. The magazine established its reputation early by publishing the first important poems of T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes, Carl Sandburg, Gwendolyn Brooks, and other now-classic authors. In succeeding decades it has presented—often for the first time—works by virtually every significant poet of the 20th century.